WSJ Computers Infiltrated by Chinese Hackers, Too

The Wall Street Journal said Thursday that its computer systems were infiltrated by Chinese hackers attempting to monitor its China coverage.

The Journal's announcement came hours after the New York Times said it suffered similar cyber attacks.

Paula Keve, a spokeswoman for the Journal's parent company, Dow Jones & Co., said in a statement that the hackers were inspecting the paper's reporting on China, not stealing customer information.

"Evidence shows that infiltration efforts target the monitoring of the Journal's coverage of China, and are not an attempt to gain commercial advantage or to misappropriate customer information," Keve said in the statement.

The hacking is an "ongoing issue," Keve said, adding that the paper was taking extra steps to ensure the safety of its sources, employees and customers.

"We continue to work closely with the authorities and outside security specialists, taking extensive measures to protect our customers, employees, journalists and sources," she said.

Keve did not respond to emails from TheWrap asking if reporters' emails were hacked, but she said on the phone that the company would "not make further statements" beyond the one sent out on Thursday.

"Just today we finished a complete overhaul of our systems designed to strengthen our networks," the statement said. "We fully intend to continue the aggressive and independent journalism for which we are known."

She said the company was cooperating with an FBI investigation into the matter.

On Wednesday night, the New York Times said it had suffered four months of "persistent" hacker attacks out of China, an apparent reaction to a story the paper published about Chinese Prime Minister Wen Jiabao's family accumulating massive wealth while he was in power.

The cyber criminals hacked into the email accounts of Shanghai bureau chief, David Barboza, who reported the story, and Jim Yardley, the Times's South Asia bureau chief based in India, who previously served as the top reporter in Beijing.

"As this attack was designed to both interfere with our journalism and undermine our reporting we felt an obligation to be transparent about it," publisher Arthur Sulzberger Jr. said in a staff memo obtained by TheWrap.